"Not only in your forgiveness, but your thanks." 289
"I will forgive you when you have found Miss de Courcy for me, and begged her pardon for your calumnies."
"I have already found her, Your Majesty, and am taking you to her now."
"You actually believe your own story, Von Markstein? You believe that this sweet and gracious lady is a fast actress, a friend of your notoriously gallant friend, and willing to compromise her good name by paying a night visit to his hunting-lodge? You really think that we shall see her there?"
"I shall see her, Your Majesty. And you will see her, if this madness you call love has not blinded the eyes of your body as well as of your mind. That she is there I know, for the Prince told me with his own lips that she was driving out to the lodge with him this afternoon."
"You mean that he told you his friend the actress was going. I'll stake my life he did not dare to say Miss de Courcy."
"He said Miss Brand, the actress, it is true. But when he called upon 290 her at the Hohenburgerhof (where he and I had met to talk of a matter which can be no mystery to Your Majesty) he asked for Miss de Courcy. And the message which came down was that Miss de Courcy would see him. This left no doubt in my mind (however the matter may present itself to you) that she had remained in Salzbrück, after giving out that she was departing to-day, for the express purpose of a meeting with her old friend, the Prince. She probably hoped that, as she was supposed to be gone, her indiscretion might be hidden from Your Majesty and others."
"Pray spare me your deductions, Chancellor," said the Emperor curtly. "I am with you in this expedition to prove you wrong, not right, and nothing that you can say will convince me that the Prince's friend and Miss de Courcy are one. If we find a woman at the hunting-lodge it will not be the lady we seek; and as you will presently be ready to eat the words you have spoken, the fewer such bitter pills you have to swallow, the better."
So snubbed by the young man whom he had held in his arms, an imperious 291 as well as Imperial infant, the old statesman relapsed into silence. But he had said that which had been in his mind to say, and he was satisfied to know that it was left to rankle. Meekness was not his métier, but he could play the part of the faithful retainer, humbly loyal through injustice and misunderstanding, when it was the one effective role; and he played it now to perfection. He sat with bowed head and stooping shoulders, suggesting the weakness of old age, his hands clasped on his knee; and from time to time he breathed a stifled sigh.
His silent pathos wrung no sign of relenting from Maximilian, however, and not a word was exchanged between the two men for nearly an hour, until they had driven under the dark arch of the first trees of the Niederwald. Then it was the Emperor who spoke.